I'm always happy when I read the last page of a non-fiction book. I feel a sense of accomplishment that finishing a novel just doesn't produce. Maybe it's because I live a story while non-fiction is simply—for lack of a better word—homework.
Whatever.
The thing is I'm feeling smug right now because yesterday I put down Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco. It's completely read, all 451 pages. I can't say it told me anything I didn't already know—or at least suspect—about our "military adventure" in Iraq, but it provided specifics and people.
There were points of interest:
1) A quote from Wolfowitz clearly states how the Gulf War led to Osama bin Laden's dislike of Americanns. "… his big complaint is that we have American troops on the holy land of Saudi Arabia and that we're bombing Iraq. That was his big recruiting device, his big claim against us." (page 18) Of course, there's nothing new there—unless you want to compare that recruiting device of 1991 with the recruiting device we're giving him now. But most of us have done that, too.
2) Remember the approach to Bagdad? How the official Iraqi news was that their army was winning battle after battle? Americans were being taken prisoner? In light of that I find the following interesting. "'We believe he (Sahhaf, Baghdad Bob) believed what he was reporting,' Army Col. Steve Boltz, the deputy chief of intelligence for V Corps, later said. Saddam Hussein's Iraq ran on fear, and bearers of bad news tended to suffer for what they delivered. 'No one would want to tell him the truth, so they lied to him.' Iraqi officers so feared the consequences of conveying negative news up the chain of command that they 'fell into telling the high command that they were all okay,' Boltz concluded." (page 134) Now we can take the above down a notch or two, but might it remind you of another head of state? Maybe someday someone will do a study on the similarities in leadership between Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush. I'd be interested in what conclusions could be drawn.
3) Of course in any book studying our experiences in Iraq, the events at Abu Ghraib eventually have to be presented, analyzed and explained. Before doing so, however, Ricks does delve into history and what abuse can do. I particularly liked the following: "When a policeman abuses or tortures a suspect, it inevitably diminishes the officer's humanity, wrote French army Capt. Pierce-Henri Simon, who was a prisoner of the Germans during World War II and, a decade later, a critic of his country's behavior during the Algerian revolution. But when a soldier uses abuse or torture, Simon argued, it is worse because 'it is here that the honor of the nation becomes engaged.'" (page 272) IMHO what happened at Abu Ghraib dishonored us all, enough so that personally I would rather have seen another 9-11 than the American behavior at Abu Ghraib. But I doubt any neocons would agree.
4) In many ways our soldiers were not well trained for this mission, a theory the book makes clear, but moving beyond that I am convinced that sending an army into a country without knowledge of its culture and language is arrogant and stupid. Ricks describes a raid on an Iraqi home where soldiers "seized two compact discs with images of Saddam on them—not knowing that the titles on the discs, in Arabic, were The Crimes of Saddam." (page 275) Granted, we can't expect a soldier to know a language and culture completely, but we can train him/her to realize that assuming he/she does know it all can lead to trouble.
5) I will never like or respect President George W. Bush, the following being but one of many factors leading to my opinion. "'We got a huge coalition,' President Bush had insisted in March 2003. 'As a matter of fact, the coalition we've assembled today is larger than the one assembled in 1991 …'" (page 346) I think our president has a lot of trouble with "the truth, the whole truth, and etc." One of the things I learned from this book is that many nations in the coalition were purely window dressing, their signing on never included being part of battles. I don't recall Bush ever mentioning that. Does anyone?
So where the book say we are now? Actually it claims we're not in as horrible shape as one may think. On the plus side, Ricks sees and approves of changes the army has seen and made. Soldiers are taught some culture and a bit of language. Maybe now the picture of Saddam on a CD cover might not automatically condemn its owner. Clearly, Ricks believes, the army has realized it's fighting a different type of war and is attempting to adapt. On the negative side, he believes that many will never support the war until its promoters admit it was based on lies and erroneous information. And that, he assumes—undoubtably correctly—is not about to happen.
